


Cor Cordium

by apolesen



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: EDA: Camera Obscura, Foe Yay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 02:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolesen/pseuds/apolesen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor seeks Sabbath out to have a heart-to-heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cor Cordium

The night Sabbath had arrived at Dartmoor had been stormy, but the following morning was bathed in sunlight. He had only slept a few hours, but had nevertheless risen early. Ever since he had started travelling through Deep Time, he had found that he did not need much sleep at all. Even before that, he had happily gone without sleep when necessary, but now, three or four hours was enough to refresh him. It might be a consequence of the time-travelling, he reflected as he straightened the knot on his tie. On the other hand, it might be because of the reason he could travel in time at all. He shrugged on his waistcoat and, before buttoning it, drew his fingers over the right side of his chest. He could feel the raised scar through his shirt. That reminder of the power he carried made him smile. When he had first met the Doctor, the elemental had already fallen ill, but it was not until he had been close to death that Sabbath had realised how he could save him and benefit himself in one action. Before then, they had been allies against the breaking of Time. After it, they had become rivals - not entirely surprising. Now, however, they were once again fighting a common enemy, although the Doctor had been reluctant at first. He still felt betrayed, Sabbath assumed, but he was learning to accept the fact that his heart was no longer his own. 

The thought of the Doctor’s annoyance made his mood even better. As he buttoned his waistcoat, he started humming the overture to _The Abduction from the Seraglio_. He had disliked the narrative structure of the opera when he had seen it in Vienna with the Doctor, prior to the crisis, but he had enjoyed the music. The beginning was rather too high for his deep voice, but the latter half was more comfortable, so he hummed his way through it as he selected a jacket. He took his time with the choice, trying to figure out what to wear to pass as a local in these parts. When he reached the end of the overture, he was straightening the lapels of a well-cut but subdued jacket which served his purposes. He was considering whether to discard his tie-pin when the new silence was broken by the sound of a clear tenor:

> _Hier soll ich dich dann sehen,  
>  Konstanze! dich mein Glück! _

Sabbath spun around, towards the door. Leaning against it was the Doctor.

‘What are you doing here?’ Sabbath snapped, but the Doctor just smiled and continued singing Belmonte’s first aria.

> _Lass, Himmel, es geschehen:  
>  Gieb mir die Ruh zurück!  
>  Gieb mir die Ruh zurück!_

‘Are you quite finished?’ Sabbath asked, after he had finally finished the segment.

‘Well, you started it,’ the Doctor said happily. 

‘I can’t remember inviting you to join me,’ he muttered and, looking away from him, glanced at himself in the mirror instead, still wondering about the tie-pin. 

‘You’re looking very period-appropriate,’ the Doctor said casually, leaving his place by the door-post. ‘Looks like you tried on most of your wardrobe to get there, too.’ 

‘I thought I’d do some investigating,’ Sabbath answered, turning his back to the mirror and following the Doctor’s progress through the room instead. ‘Blending in will help.’ The Doctor picked up a lace cravat that he had discarded on a chair when trying to find a 1890s necktie (as the era of clothing one wanted was always bound to end up at the very bottom of the travelling-trunk). He watched it with interest for a few moments, then let it fall. 

‘I envy you your wardrobe,’ he admitted. ‘It’s nothing like the one in the TARDIS, but she is, alas, in London. I’ll just have to make do.’ He tugged at his embroidered waistcoat a little. Considering that he had been chased over the moors by a rabid dog and some other mysterious pursuer the previous night, his clothes were in remarkably good condition. The only odd detail was the fact that he was not wearing any shoes or socks. How strange, Sabbath reflected, that such a small thing should look so childish and so vulnerable. When he looked up from his feet, he saw that the Doctor was watching him. There was nothing vulnerable about that face. His eyes glinted with amusement, and his strong mouth was pulled into a smile. Sabbath was suddenly reminded that however well the Doctor played the role of an immature, clueless fop, more than anything, he was a very dangerous man. However aggravating he found him, he still respected him. 

The Doctor took a step towards him. Where there had been only idle amusement, there was now a sudden purposefulness. He was still smiling. There was something unnerving, even threatening, about that smile. Sabbath felt that, really, he should not feel threatened by the Doctor - after all, Sabbath was taller, heavier and stronger - but even with many of his elemental powers gone with his heart, the Doctor had abilities Sabbath could not fathom. The simple fact that, if he wanted to, he could slip into Sabbath’s mind and change his perception, was evidence of that. He wondered if that was what he was about to do, but instead, he just took another step towards him, eyes sparkling with interest. 

‘Do you know what I find interesting?’ he purred. Sabbath thought it was a rhetorical question, but the Doctor simply watched him, waiting. Annoyed at having to admit his ignorance of anything, even this, he said:

‘No,’ and then added, ‘I don’t.’ 

The Doctor took yet another step towards him, the closeness suddenly far too intimate. Sabbath stepped backwards, trying to maintain the space between them, and almost backed into the mirror. The Doctor smiled even more broadly. 

‘Your heartbeats,’ he explained and reached out. Sabbath flinched away from his fingers, which almost touched his chest. ‘When I come close to you, your heart-rate speeds up.’ 

With another the next step, he extended his hand palm-first. Sabbath tried to lean back, but realised that he would topple over the mirror and probably break it. He did not like the idea of the Doctor touching his heart, but apart from tackling him out of the way (which was entirely possible, although it would probably lead to him breaking the Doctor rather than the mirror), there was no way of getting away from that outstretched hand. He froze, swallowing his reluctance, and the Doctor took a final step towards him. His hand settled on his chest, pressing the linen of his shirt against his skin. The touch made him aware of his own pulse, which he had still not grown used to. He had not thought about it, but he was right. It was quicker than it usually was. 

The Doctor smiled, looking up from his own hand to Sabbath’s face. 

‘I wonder why,’ he murmured. His hand wandered to the right, to the surgical scar. ‘Is it that my heart feels the presence of its twin? Or...’ His hand moved to the left. ‘...Is it your own heart, beating with excitement?’ 

Sabbath opened his mouth to answer, but realised that he had no idea what to say. He was never lost for words, but now he was struggling in frustration to find some concise phrase to sum up his outrage at the Doctor’s scandalous suggestion. 

‘That’s disgraceful,’ he said finally. He tried to restrain himself and not shout, and so it was little more than a whisper. The Doctor grinned. 

‘I was hoping you’d go for “perverse”,’ he said brightly, but as he continued, Sabbath heard a sudden anger in his voice. ‘Because it is, isn’t it? I should have two hearts. You should have one. But look at us.’ He rubbed his thumb over the surgical scar on Sabbath’s chest. ‘The order of the universe, turned around. The natural order of things just wasn’t good enough for you - you had to go twist reality to your whim.’ He grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him closer, his odd tenderness suddenly turning aggressive. Sabbath looked down on him, and even as he registered that, yes, he was scared of him, he was intrigued by the way his eyes darkened with anger. 

‘I did it for your own good,’ he reminded him calmly. ‘I saved your life.’ 

‘I didn’t ask to be saved,’ the Doctor shouted. ‘And I _didn’t_ ask that you should put my heart in your own chest!’ 

‘If I hadn’t, you would have died,’ Sabbath pointed out and took hold of his wrist. He did not pull the Doctor’s hand away, but only tightened his grip around it, feeling the delicate bones under his skin. 

‘Twice,’ the Doctor said and laughed joylessly. ‘First in the Kingdom of the Beasts, then in Liverpool. But it doesn’t change anything, that you turned a living, beating part of me-’ 

‘-A _dying_ part, Doctor,’ he reminded him, louder than he had meant to; their faces were only inches apart. ‘It was killing you!’ 

‘-A _part of me_ into a means to suit your own needs,’ he finished fiercely. ‘You might as well have wired _me_ up to your _time-machine_! All you wanted was to be able to travel in time. That you had to steal to achieve it...’ 

‘What else would you have had me do, Doctor?’ Sabbath asked. ‘What would _you_ have done? I saved your life - I cut out the rot from your body. But then, there I stood with the heart of an elemental in my hand... should I have thrown it away, when I could have used it, to escape the bonds of time...’ 

‘And tear the universe apart!’ the Doctor shouted. ‘You’re ripping the Web of Time. And in order to do it, you made me part of you, Sabbath. Did you ever think about that?’ 

‘You enjoy the hold it gives you over me,’ Sabbath all but spat. ‘Admit it.’ The Doctor’s lip twisted as if in disgust, then relaxed. His hand dropped. 

‘At least it means that both my hearts are beating. I suppose that’s always something.’ With those words, he stepped back a little and smiled. Whatever Sabbath was going to say died on his tongue. The Doctor reached up to his own throat, undid his cravat and let the silk fall to the floor. 

‘Look.’ With quick fingers, he undid his collar and the row of buttons in his shirt until the waistcoat. Then, he pulled the shirt open to expose his skin. A jagged, ugly scar ran down the right side of his chest. As Sabbath looked at it, he suddenly remembered more vividly than he had since it happened, what it had felt like to reach into the Doctor’s chest and hold his heart in his hand. He recalled how he had cut it loose and risen, and watched it still beating in the palm of his hand. It had been more than an anatomical exemplum, more than a scientific curiosity. It had been power of a kind that no human, ritualist or scientist, had ever touched. Now, months later, he fought the sudden impulse to touch the Doctor’s scar. It was the Doctor’s voice who woke him from his imaginings. 

‘You didn’t even close the wound,’ he said softly, as if reminding him. ‘You just clamped my ribs together and left me like that.’ 

‘I was pressed for time,’ Sabbath answered, eyes still on the scar.

‘I suppose that that was why you weren’t bothered by the fact that I was awake for the whole thing,’ the Doctor said sharply. 

‘You were half dead,’ Sabbath exclaimed, looking up now. ‘You were barely conscious. There’s no way you could have been in more pain than you already were. We were under siege and you had minutes to live.’ The Doctor rolled his eyes.

‘Cruel surgeon,’ he murmured. ‘Doesn’t even offer a man gin before taking his heart out.’ Sabbath snorted. 

‘I’ll remember it for next time.’ 

The Doctor smiled, a surprisingly cruel smile. 

‘You just assumed I wouldn’t remember it, didn’t you?’ 

‘How could you?’ 

‘I do,’ the Doctor said, his face solemn. ‘I dream about it. Not the incision itself, or when you broke the bones, but your hand, grabbing my heart. Lifting it up into the light. I remember that very vividly.’ His eyes had not been fixed on anything for some time, but now he looked up, straight into Sabbath’s eyes. ‘I thought I had died. That was what it felt like.’ 

‘And if I had done nothing, you would have.’ He knew that he was repeating himself, but he did not know what the Doctor wanted him to say. Did he want him to apologise? Not even the Doctor could be so stupid not to realise that, despite the discomforts, this had benefited them both. 

‘Lucky me,’ the Doctor grinned. ‘You’ve made me immortal. Only, not in the nice way. Just in the way that I die, and I don’t stay dead.’ 

‘I thought that was the kind of thing you did anyway,’ Sabbath answered. He was loosing his patience with him now. 

‘I’ve never tried before my heart was in your chest. Not as far as I can remember, at least, although my memory isn’t what is was - or so I assume. I can’t remember remembering what I don’t remember.’ 

‘Very funny,’ Sabbath said, unamused. 

‘It is, rather,’ the Doctor said lightly. His hands, which had been keeping his shirt open, fell, and instead he reached out to touch him again. ‘I keep wondering,’ he said quietly, almost whispering as he stroked his fingers over his chest, ‘how you managed it.’ 

‘I have servants,’ he answered stiffly. The Doctor looked up at him in surprise.

‘Your trained apes? You trust them that much? And it’s not just a question of skill either. There’s just not room to fit another heart into your chest cavity. How did you manage that? And how did you make it part of your circulatory system, without your body rejecting it?’ 

‘You would love to know, wouldn’t you?’ Sabbath said, suddenly pleased at the realisation that the Doctor was genuinely puzzled. 

‘Yes, I would,’ he admitted. ‘But it must have worked, although it’s probably more down to you than your furry friends.’ 

He raised his eyes to look at him, tipping his head back a little. At the same time, he moved his hands from his chest to his shoulders. For a short, mortified moment, Sabbath thought the Doctor was going to pull him down and kiss him. Instead, he moved his hands, pulled out his tie-pin and undid his tie. Sabbath swore and backed away, forgetting about the mirror. He almost lost his balance, but the Doctor still had a grip around his tie. With surprising strength, he yanked it, Sabbath stumbled forwards instead and then found his footing again. 

‘What are you doing?’ Sabbath spat. 

‘I’m feeling underdressed,’ the Doctor said and threw his tie to the floor. ‘This way seems like the easiest of changing that.’ His hands went to Sabbath’s collar stud. It gave an almost imperceptible ‘clink’ when it fell to the floor. Deftly, the Doctor started undoing the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt instead. 

Why did he not push him away? Why did he not grab his thin wrists and remove his hands, or twist them until the pain forced him to let go? Why did he stand it? He had no answer, because even if it was well within his abilities, he did not act. Instead, he watched how the Doctor worked at each button before moving on to the next. Finally, he pulled his shirt open and revealed his chest. The Doctor’s cold fingers touched the scar. Sabbath shivered, and it struck him that it might not be because of the cold. The Doctor glanced up at him, a mischievous glint in his eyes, and leaned down. Slowly, as if he as teasing him, he brought his face to the level of his heart. Then he tipped his head back a little, and his lips grazed his skin for the shortest of moments. The contact broke, but Sabbath could still feel his breath against the scar as the Doctor whispered: 

‘Hello, dear heart.’ He turned his head, as if waiting for an answer. He was silent for a moment, concentrating, and then laughed softly. Evidently satisfied with what he had heard, he straightened up, but did not step back. Instead, he placed his hand flat against Sabbath’s chest, over his own heart, and looked up at him. Sabbath returned his gaze. It struck him suddenly how alien the Doctor looked. Once again, he was overwhelmed by the realisation that he was dangerous, possibly even more dangerous than he could fathom. The Doctor was not of this world, or of any world that still existed. He was a refugee from a higher plane, an orphaned god who had sought out this petty planet to make his new home, and Sabbath had received him by scavenging from him. He had taken a part of him and let it pump his own, human blood. The Doctor was right - Sabbath had made him a part of himself. Would it change him? he wondered. Would it turn him into something like him, otherworldly and unreadable, or would it kill him, as it almost had the Doctor? 

But even as he realised that the Doctor was someone he should be frightened of, he also recognised how beautiful he was. It was not just because of his worldly prettiness, but also the peculiarities in his looks and his gaze. It made him fear him more, but the fact that he feared him seemed to make him more beautiful. His eyes were a pale blue which Sabbath had never seen among human eyes, the hand which covered his stolen second heart felt like no human hand, and he had the distinct feeling, although he did not know how, that the Doctor knew what he was thinking. It should not upset him, of all people, who had been to other planets and in other times, but still he was struck by the sheer wrongness of him. He did not belong, not even here, on the planet to which he had bonded himself.

Sabbath could not stand it any longer. He forced his hand from his chest and pushed him away. The Doctor backed away as if he had been led, not pushed. His smile did not falter. In fact, Sabbath thought it might have widened, growing more self-satisfied than before. He was enjoying teasing him like this, he realised. Sabbath tried to think of something to say which would express his anger and resentment, without admitting anything else, but he, who was so used to always knowing what to say, was lost for words. He stood in silence with gritted teeth, unable to move. The Doctor barely seemed to notice. Casually he picked up his cravat from the floor where he had dropped it and, pulling his shirt closed, tied it around his undone collar. 

‘Take good care of it, Sabbath,’ he said and nodded towards his chest. ‘I might need it back at some point.’ And with a final maddening smile, he left the room. 

Sabbath stood frozen, concentrating on breathing to calm his racing hearts. From the corridor, he heard the Doctor’s voice.

> _O wie ängstlich, o wie feurig,_  
>  Klopft mein liebevolles Herz!  
>  Und des Wiedersehens Zähre  
>  Lohnt der Trennung bangen Schmerz. 

Sabbath listened, remembering the words of the lovesick hero’s aria. _Oh how anxiously and fervently my love-filled heart beats, and the tears of reunion is reward for the fearful pain of our separation..._ How different the meaning was, when it was the Doctor who sung them.

His voice grew more distant, until it disappeared altogether. Sabbath looked down at himself, feeling as through he was assessing damage. His shirt was unbuttoned, his waistcoat hung open, and his discarded collar and tie lay at his feet. There was no sign of the tie-pin and the collar-stud. He would have to find them so that he could investigate as he had planned to. Sighing with frustration, he did up his buttons and started looking for the glint of metal on the floor. 

For the rest of the day, Sabbath could be seen reaching up and brushing his hand against the right side of his chest, as if tracing a phantom touch.


End file.
